While this is generally true, I think you underestimate the number of cracked/private servers out there that don't check CD keys. Witness sites like epcgaming.com [epcgaming.com]. Now obviously with a legit CD key your choices are much larger, but if you limit yourself to cracked servers you can still play a lot of multiplayer games online to your heart's content.
Yes, and I'm sure CD protection schemes stop this. They'd break that very quickly, as evidenced by the ease in which I can get no-cd cracks these days (yay).
If they're beating the cd auth system, they'll beat the cd-in-the-drive system.
so I have a DS, and I play lots of mario kart on it. great fun etc etc.
been reading a lot about nintendo's "lets make fun games and not harp on about specs" party line and I dig it.
so I decide to try out animal crossing. after tinkering with it for about 3-4 hours, I still fail to see how this is fun or even a game at all.
I've never played the sims, but to me it seems that animal crossing is essentially goal-less, and there are a stack of mini-games like "fishing", "bug catching", or "collecting shells on the beach" that, to me at least, are about as fun as navel gazing.
Using your logic, by making bogus claims with severe implications and using a so-called expert to back them up, you can be easily coerced into changing your behavior in just about any way. If you disagree, perhaps you should revisit your previous logic.
How are statistics collected? Your data is collected by doing a server query to every server once every two minutes. The server returns a list of players, their current score and how long they've been in the server for.
How is the score measured? I've tried to calculate your score fairly. If you have a high P/M (points per minute) value but only have played for an hour, your score will be lower then someone with the same P/M over a longer time. On the other hand, if someone has played for 10 hours and has a higher P/M then someone who's played for 20 hours, the scores will be similar. The more you play the harder it is to raise your score unless you raise your P/M.
To calculate the score, the system works out a 'multiplier' depending on how long you've played. The multiplier is a number between 0 and 1. When you first start playing it will be very close to 0. If you've played for 10 hours or more it will be 0.9 or higher. You will never be able to hit 1.0.
Your score is worked out by multiplying the multiplier with your P/M. Here are the formulas:
Why don't you track users by their steam id? Because you can't get that information just by polling a server. You only get 3 things per person - Name, Points and Time on server.
Why are ranks out of order? The actual score is updated continuously, but your ranking is only updated 4 times a day. The reason for this is that it takes a lot of CPU power to process everyone's rank.
Why don't you use frags/death instead of frags/minute? Half Life 2 servers only give us 3 bits of information per player: their name, their points(frags) and their connected time. No death data is accessable! Check it out for yourself, do a query on a server and see if you can find their points to death ratio!
in the demo, I didn't really find this game very fun. I liked the 'world' and it held my interest for a while, but at the end of the day I was just making a squddie, then manually controlling them to shoot at little arrows moving around and lobbing a few nades, and that was about it. I didn't understand how that was supposed to be fun.
I know this probably makes me a moron, but sometimes I _like_ being consumed by hype.
Case in point: Halo2. This thing has so much hype surrounding it, it's rediculous, and if truth be told, I've been utterly sucked in by the whole halo/ilovebees/piracyscandal series of PR.
And I tell you what, I will thoroughly ENJOY feeling like a little kid at christmas when it arrives at my front door, and I have the day set aside purely to play it, with plenty of snacks and drinks to accompany it.
Was NOT the Greedo scene (a close second), but actually the music-scene in Jabba's palace - the original song was called "Lapti Nek" by Sy Snoodles and the Max Rebo Band. It was a really catchy tune (just before Jabba dropped his pet/slave girl into the Rancor pit).
Now, Lucas swapped in some forgettable piece of crap and added pointless annoying extra characters, and ruined one of my favourite scenes.
So f! you, Mr Lucas.
On the weekend I watched Star Wars IV ('Special' Edition), and a friend who doesn't really remember star wars at all, commented on how stupid the Greedo scene was (looked fake).
The demo is worth downloading purely for the CG intro video - which really captures the essence and chaos of a battle, imho. So even if you have no interest in the game - check out the vid!
It was Labor that de-regulated the banking industry, creating the oligopoly that we all know and pay tithes to (and there are so many ways they bleed your account dry). I doubt they'll do anything different than Howard.
scene: George Lucas and a horde of head-bobbing clones are all seated around a table. (you, a dashing job applicant, walk in, head bobbing already like some dashboard toy)
George: Hi there! You: Yes. George (flicking through CV): so, it says here that you have no experience with the film industry at all-- You: Yes! George:-- but I see here listed under hobbies that you are completely malleable, have no free will and enjoy words starting with Y? You: Yes! George (stroking fat-neck hiding beard, then punches this question out with a keen gaze and pointed finger): Hrm, so tell me your greatest skill! You: Yes! George (leaning back to crowd of yes-men): We gotta hire this guy. Crowd of goons: Yes! (with head bobbing) One goon trying to impress: Ya-huh! (George's scowl wipes the smile off his face) You: Yes!
freedoms are lost in incremements. this is one. Props to John Gilmore for fighting a worthy fight.
What I'm scared of is flying through your soon-to-be police state of america, and getting stopped/detained on the way through because I'm on some vague, secret list.
American customs officials scare me. I've been through US airports many times, and I always have had negative experiences.
Apparently, walking up to customs with your girlfriend and handing over 2 passports is too much for them.
We handed over our passports, open, showing our photos, and they guy looks at us like we're idiots and says, gruffly, "which is YOUR passport?". I cut short some smart-ass reply due to my own personal fear of having my ass invaded by a latex covered glove....
I think that's a bit unfair, beacuse after time your skills may degrade as a result of not being in the industry. I think they shuold just payout the entire period up-front - oh and pay for any courses you take during the process to keep up to par with your industry. THAT is fair. Non-competes are dodgy.
You also misunderstand the technology, black boxes are passive monitoring devices. They transmit nothing, they just record.
That's just the problem, isn't it? They're passive.... FOR NOW. A few years down the track it's a simple matter for a push to make them active. Then get one installed in your toaster as well.
Police State!
That US patents will apply to Australian software developers?
Australia's economy is tiny compared to the US, and I'm not keen on the effect this has on Australia IT startups trying to avoid the patent highwayman on all the backroads...:(
I don't understand why US patents don't work differently for software? I was imagining:
a) a much shorter lifespan of any patent (5 years maybe)
b) if you don't develop anything to do with the patent after a year, it's considered void
I know that b) might be hard to prove, but something along these lines are needed!
To be honest, this is the main reason I still play counter-strike:
a) No learning curve really, so I just hop in and create carnage. b) I rent my own server, so no having to put up with dodgy hackers/raters/whiners/etc. c) the game runs at a near constant 100fps, so no having to tinker and tweak the game to run well. And I don't have to constantly upgrade my rig. d) Steam's server browser is the best I've ever seen (I've stopped using ASE). I LOVE how it's integrated in and out of the game. I just doubleclick on a full server and use auto-retry option, go and get some drink and voila, I'm in.
Despite the russian proverb, the only concern I have about these kinds of initiatives is the line is only made in the sand (ie, it can be changed):
2004/ child pornogaphy is blocked 2005/ pornography is blocked 2006/ anti-bush websites are blocked 2007/ all weblogs are taken offline 1984/ freedom is slavery
this may be a little bit extreme, sure, but it's axiomatic that freedoms are lost in tiny increments.
Ignoring the actual issues involving the supposed 'crime', I find public monitoring a little uncomfortable.. esp in a darkened theatre. I guess they should just stick up a sign above the screen titled 'big brother is watching you'.
A little creepy for my tastes, freedoms are lost one inch at a time.... remember that folks!
"PS: Every time something is copied, put a unique identifier into the video that tells what machine duplicated/edited it. That way you can trace the pirated copies to where they came from and shut 'em down. I wouldn't mind that. I keep my rights, and the studio can shut down the pirates."
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, and I'm sure CD protection schemes stop this. They'd break that very quickly, as evidenced by the ease in which I can get no-cd cracks these days (yay).
If they're beating the cd auth system, they'll beat the cd-in-the-drive system.
so I have a DS, and I play lots of mario kart on it. great fun etc etc.
been reading a lot about nintendo's "lets make fun games and not harp on about specs" party line and I dig it.
so I decide to try out animal crossing. after tinkering with it for about 3-4 hours, I still fail to see how this is fun or even a game at all.
I've never played the sims, but to me it seems that animal crossing is essentially goal-less, and there are a stack of mini-games like "fishing", "bug catching", or "collecting shells on the beach" that, to me at least, are about as fun as navel gazing.
the "obvious disadvantage" you cite is a "show stopper" (literally) for me. having a story modifed to market some product pisses me off to no end.
_ robot
for more insight, see maddox's review:
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=i
note that "obedience to authority" can be proven by scientific experiment.
basically, stark authority can override a person's moral values, as they confer the moral burden to the authority.
I see a parallel here, where people derive opinion from stark authority, no matter how bogus it is.
check this out: http://acssr.slowchop.com/
from the FAQ:
How are statistics collected?
Your data is collected by doing a server query to every server once every two minutes. The server returns a list of players, their current score and how long they've been in the server for.
How is the score measured?
I've tried to calculate your score fairly. If you have a high P/M (points per minute) value but only have played for an hour, your score will be lower then someone with the same P/M over a longer time. On the other hand, if someone has played for 10 hours and has a higher P/M then someone who's played for 20 hours, the scores will be similar. The more you play the harder it is to raise your score unless you raise your P/M.
To calculate the score, the system works out a 'multiplier' depending on how long you've played. The multiplier is a number between 0 and 1. When you first start playing it will be very close to 0. If you've played for 10 hours or more it will be 0.9 or higher. You will never be able to hit 1.0.
Your score is worked out by multiplying the multiplier with your P/M. Here are the formulas:
multiplier = 1 - 3600 / ( seconds + 3600 )
score = multiplier * points / seconds * 100000
Why don't you track users by their steam id?
Because you can't get that information just by polling a server. You only get 3 things per person - Name, Points and Time on server.
Why are ranks out of order?
The actual score is updated continuously, but your ranking is only updated 4 times a day. The reason for this is that it takes a lot of CPU power to process everyone's rank.
Why don't you use frags/death instead of frags/minute?
Half Life 2 servers only give us 3 bits of information per player: their name, their points(frags) and their connected time. No death data is accessable! Check it out for yourself, do a query on a server and see if you can find their points to death ratio!
in the demo, I didn't really find this game very fun. I liked the 'world' and it held my interest for a while, but at the end of the day I was just making a squddie, then manually controlling them to shoot at little arrows moving around and lobbing a few nades, and that was about it. I didn't understand how that was supposed to be fun.
I read that he wanted to pursue his true passion: playing flashlight.
I know this probably makes me a moron, but sometimes I _like_ being consumed by hype.
Case in point: Halo2. This thing has so much hype surrounding it, it's rediculous, and if truth be told, I've been utterly sucked in by the whole halo/ilovebees/piracyscandal series of PR.
And I tell you what, I will thoroughly ENJOY feeling like a little kid at christmas when it arrives at my front door, and I have the day set aside purely to play it, with plenty of snacks and drinks to accompany it.
Was NOT the Greedo scene (a close second), but actually the music-scene in Jabba's palace - the original song was called "Lapti Nek" by Sy Snoodles and the Max Rebo Band. It was a really catchy tune (just before Jabba dropped his pet/slave girl into the Rancor pit).
Now, Lucas swapped in some forgettable piece of crap and added pointless annoying extra characters, and ruined one of my favourite scenes.
So f! you, Mr Lucas.
On the weekend I watched Star Wars IV ('Special' Edition), and a friend who doesn't really remember star wars at all, commented on how stupid the Greedo scene was (looked fake).
The demo is worth downloading purely for the CG intro video - which really captures the essence and chaos of a battle, imho. So even if you have no interest in the game - check out the vid!
It was Labor that de-regulated the banking industry, creating the oligopoly that we all know and pay tithes to (and there are so many ways they bleed your account dry). I doubt they'll do anything different than Howard.
At least in the USA you don't have an oligopoly to deal with, where you pay through both nostrils for bandwidth-limited/capped services.
:)
So quit your whining, yanks!
I've been very impressed by UK broadband - highly competetive, cheap and relatively unrestricted usage. Nerd heaven.
I believe that Alien Swarm (www.alienswarm.com) will be included on the Ed Choice edition as well.
scene: George Lucas and a horde of head-bobbing clones are all seated around a table.
(you, a dashing job applicant, walk in, head bobbing already like some dashboard toy)
George: Hi there!
You: Yes.
George (flicking through CV): so, it says here that you have no experience with the film industry at all--
You: Yes!
George:-- but I see here listed under hobbies that you are completely malleable, have no free will and enjoy words starting with Y?
You: Yes!
George (stroking fat-neck hiding beard, then punches this question out with a keen gaze and pointed finger): Hrm, so tell me your greatest skill!
You: Yes!
George (leaning back to crowd of yes-men): We gotta hire this guy.
Crowd of goons: Yes! (with head bobbing)
One goon trying to impress: Ya-huh! (George's scowl wipes the smile off his face)
You: Yes!
freedoms are lost in incremements. this is one. Props to John Gilmore for fighting a worthy fight. What I'm scared of is flying through your soon-to-be police state of america, and getting stopped/detained on the way through because I'm on some vague, secret list. American customs officials scare me. I've been through US airports many times, and I always have had negative experiences. Apparently, walking up to customs with your girlfriend and handing over 2 passports is too much for them. We handed over our passports, open, showing our photos, and they guy looks at us like we're idiots and says, gruffly, "which is YOUR passport?". I cut short some smart-ass reply due to my own personal fear of having my ass invaded by a latex covered glove....
I think that's a bit unfair, beacuse after time your skills may degrade as a result of not being in the industry. I think they shuold just payout the entire period up-front - oh and pay for any courses you take during the process to keep up to par with your industry. THAT is fair. Non-competes are dodgy.
You also misunderstand the technology, black boxes are passive monitoring devices. They transmit nothing, they just record. That's just the problem, isn't it? They're passive.... FOR NOW. A few years down the track it's a simple matter for a push to make them active. Then get one installed in your toaster as well. Police State!
That US patents will apply to Australian software developers? Australia's economy is tiny compared to the US, and I'm not keen on the effect this has on Australia IT startups trying to avoid the patent highwayman on all the backroads... :(
I don't understand why US patents don't work differently for software? I was imagining: a) a much shorter lifespan of any patent (5 years maybe) b) if you don't develop anything to do with the patent after a year, it's considered void I know that b) might be hard to prove, but something along these lines are needed!
To be honest, this is the main reason I still play counter-strike:
a) No learning curve really, so I just hop in and create carnage.
b) I rent my own server, so no having to put up with dodgy hackers/raters/whiners/etc.
c) the game runs at a near constant 100fps, so no having to tinker and tweak the game to run well. And I don't have to constantly upgrade my rig.
d) Steam's server browser is the best I've ever seen (I've stopped using ASE). I LOVE how it's integrated in and out of the game. I just doubleclick on a full server and use auto-retry option, go and get some drink and voila, I'm in.
Despite the russian proverb, the only concern I have about these kinds of initiatives is the line is only made in the sand (ie, it can be changed):
2004/ child pornogaphy is blocked
2005/ pornography is blocked
2006/ anti-bush websites are blocked
2007/ all weblogs are taken offline
1984/ freedom is slavery
this may be a little bit extreme, sure, but it's axiomatic that freedoms are lost in tiny increments.
Ignoring the actual issues involving the supposed 'crime', I find public monitoring a little uncomfortable.. esp in a darkened theatre. I guess they should just stick up a sign above the screen titled 'big brother is watching you'.
A little creepy for my tastes, freedoms are lost one inch at a time.... remember that folks!
"PS: Every time something is copied, put a unique identifier into the video that tells what machine duplicated/edited it. That way you can trace the pirated copies to where they came from and shut 'em down. I wouldn't mind that. I keep my rights, and the studio can shut down the pirates."
Possibly the easiest copy protection to defeat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918 scary stuff.
lol do you really think a 'mugger' gives a shit about 'global balance'? I'm thinking about the old axiom about honour among thieves....